Is Anyone Else Intermittent Fasting?

[Ayanle Farah]

I have been fasting intermittently for awhile now with great results.

I basically fast 5:2 and really feel great right for the new couple of days.

Also have lost about 20lbs in the last couple of months since I've started it though that isn't really the main goal I had in mind. I just wanted to be more healthy and have changed my diet along with fasting.

Just curious if anyone else has been IF for any period of time.

If so, what days and how do you fast, ie water only, juice, coffee etc?

Yea I did it.... for about 4 days or so.

I have water fasted once for almost 48 hours.

I should mention that as a muslim I fast from sunrise to sunset once a month every year yet when it's not ramadan I can't seem to stay consistent with it.

 

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[Maks]

I have been IF for a few months 16:8 style so you fast 16 hours and eat like 3 meals or 2 in other 8 hours, or maybe 15:9 some days due to time limitations. I think everyone should try it for 3 months and make his own thoughts about it based on how his body adjusts and depending on his lifestyle. If I got really hungry in the beginning of the diet I tried eating a bit of fruit or drank some tea with bcaa or whatever and was fine. overall for me was good but from some friends I know it just might not be good for some people due to body or lifestyle factors

 

[JAJT]

I've been doing IF on and off (maybe 80/20 on/off) for a few months now. Personally I love it.

I wake up and basically don't eat until dinner around 5pm.
Then I stop around 8-9pm and repeat.

Personally I was only hungry the first day or so and now I don't even notice I haven't eaten anything until dinner.
I don't notice any fantastic energy boosts or mental clarity or anything but it sure simplifies the day by eliminating two meals per day.

Sometimes if I'm in a mood I might have a really late lunch (like 3pm) but it's usually just small to satisfy the craving but usually it's just one meal per day.

Some people get famished like crazy doing this but I transitioned really, really easily personally.

 

[million$$$smile]

@AgainstAllOdds, thanks for the links. Really appreciate it. Having mainly been doing this on my own, I know I've been all over the place, especially with the times that I eat on non fast days. All I know is that I feel better, have more energy and a clearer focus since I have been on this routine.

Your approach is quite a bit more radical than many have mentioned but it sounds as though you've lost some radical weight in the process of cutting.
Just curious if you have a recommendation for a particular body fat monitor.

I personally don't understand why if one is going to the length of fasting in the first place why they then go out and eat dirty afterwards.
To me it would be like like rebuilding your car and then putting dirty used motor oil back in it. But to each his own.

I am really surprised at how many here have been experimenting with IF. I have kind of become fascinated with it in regards to age longevity.

 

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[AgainstAllOdds]

Just curious if you have a recommendation for a particular body fat monitor.

It doesn't matter which one you get as long as you use the same one to measure each time. The purpose is to track progress and if your routine works, not necessarily to pinpoint your body fat percentage with 100% accuracy.

The one I use is the Omron Fat Loss Monitor. It's the top listing on Amazon and often at your local gym, so easy to measure.

If you want an extremely accurate measurement, then you need to do something like an x-ray or underwater weighing - which is next to impossible to do on a daily basis (expensive, inconvenient).

Just get the $30 monitor. Measure after taking a dump, or when you wake up on an empty stomach (for consistency), and track from there.

 

[JAJT]

Just get the $30 monitor. Measure after taking a dump, or when you wake up on an empty stomach (for consistency), and track from there.

While I've never tracked body fat, I have measured weight quite a bit and I will say that doing it early in the morning in the same routine helps a LOT in terms of leveling out the ups and downs. When I was working out / losing weight actively I'd measure myself on an empty stomach, after going to the bathroom, after my workout and I'd always be very, very close to the previous day's measurement. If I measured at night or mid day the weight would be all over the damn place.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

For more experiences/discussions, here's another thread on the same topic...

Intermittent fasting

Carry on.

 

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[million$$$smile]

I honestly didn't realize there was another thread on this subject. I actually did a search looking for another thread, but I believe I had originally misspelled the word intermittent and typed it intermittant. Spellcheck caught it for me when I began the thread (but not in the search bar) but I didn't even think about re-searching with the correct spelling. My bad. The older thread didn't come up on the first few pages , only fasting in general. @Mj is right.
There is another thread and it does have some great info...

 

[Raoul Duke]

@million$$$smile

Another good source of IF - O/T: Health - The one and only fasting video you need to see.

 

[MattR82]

I've found changing my diet to mainly veg, eggs and lean meat cooked in coconut oil and eating a lot of good fats like avocado really made it easy to have a 14 to 20 hour gap between dinner and breakfast. Rarely eat more than twice a day now. Definitely noticed things are better in the morning on an empty stomach, or just a long black coffee.

I tried keto for awhile but after a lot of research it wasn't for me (sweet potatoes cannot be eliminated haha). I don't really need to lose weight. And to do it properly can mean min 6 to 9 months sometimes before fully adapted. But keeping to the diet mentioned above I lost what I needed to easily and feel pretty good.

It sounds so boring, but starting an elimination diet was a great expirement. I still have what I want once a week or so. Last night was chicken tika masala with rice and butter naan bread. Fcking delicious, but it's now 1pm the next day and honestly, I feel like absolute shit lol. Oh and I was hungry as soon as I woke up. I would never have noticed or paid attention before.

Bottom line, for me just eating healthy organic veg 80% of the time did wonders. And eventually they start tasting like sugar anyway.

 

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[wade1mil]

Last month I experimented with eating once a day and lost 1-2 pounds a day for two weeks. Had to drink lots of water! I felt better on an empty stomach than when I eat throughout the day. Other than being hungry at night, the one downfall I noticed was I got very tired after eating my one meal. I'm about to start another two weeks of eating once a day this week.

The science, as I understand it...

Your body converts sugars (carbs) to blood glucose and stores it in your liver (glucose stores). Your body uses glucose stores in your liver as energy when it's available, and body fat when it's not available. When your liver is full, your body bypasses the liver and stores both FAT and CARBS as body fat. Intermittent fasting empties the glucose stores in your liver, as well as stops the storing of carbs and fat as body fat. When you have no glucose stores in your liver to use for energy, your body resorts to burning body fat for energy instead.

Edit: A good way of emptying your glucose stores is doing sprints or some very high-effort physical activity. It forces your body to expend the glucose stores because you need the energy immediately. In this case, your body doesn't have the time to break down body fat for energy.

 

[MattR82]

Last month I experimented with eating once a day and lost 1-2 pounds a day for two weeks. Had to drink lots of water! I felt better on an empty stomach than when I eat throughout the day. Other than being hungry at night, the one downfall I noticed was I got very tired after eating my one meal. I'm about to start another two weeks of eating once a day this week.

The science, as I understand it...

Your body converts sugars (carbs) to blood glucose and stores it in your liver (glucose stores). Your body uses glucose stores in your liver as energy when it's available, and body fat when it's not available. When your liver is full, your body bypasses the liver and stores both FAT and CARBS as body fat. Intermittent fasting empties the glucose stores in your liver, as well as stops the storing of carbs and fat as body fat. When you have no glucose stores in your liver to use for energy, your body resorts to burning body fat for energy instead.

I get really tired after eating a carb heavy meal. Siesta time..

Do you think it's because it's carb heavy or because you are only eating once a day?

 

[wade1mil]

Do you think it's because it's carb heavy or because you are only eating once a day?

What I was eating wasn't carb heavy, so I think it was a combination of eating the meal and not doing anything physical after I ate. What I think was happening is my body was using all of its energy digesting the food. When I do something physical after eating the one meal a day, I notice it less. Sometimes not at all if it requires my full effort.

 

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[Scot]

Just started my 3rd day of intermittent fasting. I’m doong a 8/16 split. 8 hour feeding window and 18 hours of fasting.


It’s a struggle because I work out at 5 am and then spend the whole day in a car. So, my entire food intake is in a car.

I get hungry at night but it’s nothing I can’t manage. Just struggling to actually hit all my macros right now.

I’m doing it as part of a 6 week cutting challenge too, so I’m excited to see results. I might post them up here if it works out.

 

[fortu1992]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525534075/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

 

[MattR82]

Just started my 3rd day of intermittent fasting. I’m doong a 8/16 split. 8 hour feeding window and 18 hours of fasting.


It’s a struggle because I work out at 5 am and then spend the whole day in a car. So, my entire food intake is in a car.

I get hungry at night but it’s nothing I can’t manage. Just struggling to actually hit all my macros right now.

I’m doing it as part of a 6 week cutting challenge too, so I’m excited to see results. I might post them up here if it works out.

Good luck man. After some time, maybe a month? Can't really remember but not that long, I got very used to that exact window and never feel hungry anymore eating twice a day in 8 hours.

I've lost a lot though. Actually looking a bit to lean. Aka a skinny a$$ bitch lol. Need to swap muay thai for learning weights.

I'd be interested for sure, for some reason it interests me.

 

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[million$$$smile]

I’m doing it as part of a 6 week cutting challenge too, so I’m excited to see results. I might post them up here if it works out.

If would be interesting to see how it works for you. Any idea your daily calorie intake? Please consider posting your results

I also have challenged myself to lose body fat a bit more radically than have been. I'm trying to incorporate the OMAD (One meal a day) routine consistently. So far have been able to stick to it 4 out of 5 days. Biggest challenge for me is changing my schedule for meeting with certain individuals. We have always met for breakfast or lunch and it is as awkward for them as it is for me to meet when I am not eating and they are. I broke it one day for that reason because it just 'felt better' while meeting.

I don't eat until after 8 pm and try to get in an hour workout prior to eating. Have been limiting my intake to less than 1500 calories, no meat or dairy. Have lost another 5 lbs but with the workouts, I believe this will slow down a bit due to adding a bit of muscle (hopefully)

Feel great. Still fighting the hunger pangs at times during the day, but that is just part of the challenge. One of my goals is to drop down to 170 lbs. Last weigh-in this a.m. 179 so I hope to get there in a couple of weeks. This will be the lightest I've weighed since high school and I now have grandkids that are older than that so it gives you an idea where I'm at.

@fortu1992 thanks for the link. Have read some short articles by Valter Longo, now I'll order his book. Longevity and the health benefits are why I started this lifestyle...

 

[Scot]

Good luck man. After some time, maybe a month? Can't really remember but not that long, I got very used to that exact window and never feel hungry anymore eating twice a day in 8 hours.

I've lost a lot though. Actually looking a bit to lean. Aka a skinny a$$ bitch lol. Need to swap muay thai for learning weights.

I'd be interested for sure, for some reason it interests me.

I remember doing a pretty strict diet plan 2 years ago, the first week trying to stuff 2500 Calories into my gut was miserable. But I got used to it quickly.

I’m sure by Monday I’ll adapt to it.

Thankfully the workout plan I’m on right now is pretty intense, so I’ll hopefully put on a little bit of muscle during the process.

If would be interesting to see how it works for you. Any idea your daily calorie intake? Please consider posting your results

I also have challenged myself to lose body fat a bit more radically than have been. I'm trying to incorporate the OMAD (One meal a day) routine consistently. So far have been able to stick to it 4 out of 5 days. Biggest challenge for me is changing my schedule for meeting with certain individuals. We have always met for breakfast or lunch and it is as awkward for them as it is for me to meet when I am not eating and they are. I broke it one day for that reason because it just 'felt better' while meeting.

I don't eat until after 8 pm and try to get in an hour workout prior to eating. Have been limiting my intake to less than 1500 calories, no meat or dairy. Have lost another 5 lbs but with the workouts, I believe this will slow down a bit due to adding a bit of muscle (hopefully)

Feel great. Still fighting the hunger pangs at times during the day, but that is just part of the challenge. One of my goals is to drop down to 170 lbs. Last weigh-in this a.m. 179 so I hope to get there in a couple of weeks. This will be the lightest I've weighed since high school and I now have grandkids that are older than that so it gives you an idea where I'm at

This is my log from yesterday. 2350 Calories.



My goal is 11 C, 0.75 g Carbs, 0.5 g fat and 1.5 g protein per lb body weight.

I’m currently 210, not trying to shed too much scale weight, but I wouldn’t mind being at 195 lbs though. I’m mostly trying to trade body fat for muscle.

I guess my meal plans different than yours. I’m still eating 3 meals a day, except my dinner is 3pm. I feel over full eating all the food I do during the day.

I’m excited to see what happens!

 

[Scot]

Btw, this is the IF plan I’m following.

http://jymsupplementscience.com/intermittent-fasting/

 

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[BD64]

I've done IIFYM for years with good results (I'm 160 ~10-13% BF consistently throughout the year). I'm planning on switching over to IF possibly after this cycle I'm finishing up next week. Looks like 18/6 is the way to go for starters. My plan is wake up at ~5-6am don't eat till 11:230-noon and finish eating by 6ish. Get my important work done in the morning with that ~6-7 hour period. Workout between meals, around 2-3.

How do you guys feel in the morning when you wake up and for the duration of the morning until you start eating in that 6 hour window? My only worry is that having to fit in my ~2500cal in 6 hours is going to make those 6 hours and change really tiresome and unproductive just cuz my body is gonna be so busy.

 

[Alexo]

I eat twice a day - lunch and dinner and mostly meat (beef) and also do heavy weights 4 times a week.

I almost never feel hungry when eating meat
I almost never feel joint pain/soreness after workouts
My muscle tone improved considerably
My skin improved considerably
My strength went up considerably
Libido is up considerably
Thought/clarity is up considerably
Near zero anxiety or mood swings, confidence is at all time high...I feel like a LION
Energy is up but only after adaptation (depends on person, sometimes up to a year)

I would recommend low carb or zero carb if you are going through health issues..

 

[JasonR]

Man, it's great a lot of you love IF, but I've tried it and I can't seem to solve a few issues:

Morning Hunger: I'm terribly hungry in the morning, even after coffee. I typically do fasted cardio, and then eat right after. On IF, I may do fasted cardio and eat 2-3 hours after and I'm famished, which makes me cranky.

When I eat my required macros/calories in 2 meals, I feel incredibly bloated and full. I really dislike this feeling, and it seems like it's unnecessarily hard on my stomach.

To me, IF is just a way to reduce your calories. I'm not sure if the fasting part has as much to do with fat loss than actual caloric reduction.

I'm love for someone to prove me wrong or offer suggestions to my two issues, as it is much more convenient to eat 2 times per day as opposed to 5-6.

 

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[Raoul Duke]

Man, it's great a lot of you love IF, but I've tried it and I can't seem to solve a few issues:

Morning Hunger: I'm terribly hungry in the morning, even after coffee. I typically do fasted cardio, and then eat right after. On IF, I may do fasted cardio and eat 2-3 hours after and I'm famished, which makes me cranky.

When I eat my required macros/calories in 2 meals, I feel incredibly bloated and full. I really dislike this feeling, and it seems like it's unnecessarily hard on my stomach.

To me, IF is just a way to reduce your calories. I'm not sure if the fasting part has as much to do with fat loss than actual caloric reduction.

I'm love for someone to prove me wrong or offer suggestions to my two issues, as it is much more convenient to eat 2 times per day as opposed to 5-6.

Watch this. It helped me.

 

[amp0193]

Watch this. It helped me.

Loved the video, that was a great intro to all of this stuff.

I hand't heard about IF until yesterday, but now I'm really intrigued.

Going to keep reading and give it a go.

 

[BD64]

@JasonR

If your having trouble staying satiated try eating lots of veggies towards the end of your consumption window and also high fats - lower carbs. More specifically eat healthier fats and keeps carbs more complex. Simple carbs cause insulin spikes which can be really beneficial when trying to put on weight but suck in terms of keeping full and losing weight.

What I plan on doing is having ample protein, a few simple carbs and some complex carbs before the workout and some complex carbs/protein directly after. By that time I'll have another ~3 hours left in my consumption window where I'll munch on fatty proteins (chuck roasts, chicken leg quarter, etc.) and a forest worth of greens while cutting out carbs, especially towards the end of the window.

Hmm, I'm getting pretty excited talking about it actually. Been hearing a lot of good things

 

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[Thoelt53]

An IF article for those interested:

http://body.io/intermittent-fasting-part-1/

It’s Part 1 of 3. The other two parts can be found on the home page.

Body.io is an awesome resource. I recommend poking around there. All of John Kiefer’s stuff is great.

 

[SomeGuy]

Well, good luck reading this post..

Dr. Jason Fung has an awesome book on the thread, but it is not exactly anything that isn't shared on the internet. He has an hour long interview with some guy on YT and there he explains the majority of his book. I have done IF for weight loss, but gained the weight back a few times after poor ethic. Few months ago I used it again and I lost about 15kg's , which I haven't gained back, I still have about 5-6 more to lose, but because I don't look as fat as I used to look, I'm not exactly feeling motivated to finish the journey.

I still d**k around with food, but I do it in amounts to sustain my current weight and not gain anything back.
IF is the easiest method to start with ( 16:8 for example ), but if you are into weight loss specifically, One meal a day I found to be working best for me. I did it for a few days and after my body adjusted I started skipping days and working out more intensively. I would not do the same schedule all the time, to keep my body shocked, so I would eat once today, skip a day, then the next time I would skip 3 days, then 2 days and on and on.

I did this for about 35 days, combined with working out almost every day ( light weight training with dumbbells at home, skipping rope and walks ) to lose the 15 kg's. Longer fasts are done easier than short ones ( A week long fast is easier than three 2 day long fasts ), because you don't feel hunger at all after the first day or two, and the first days are always the hardest.
16:8 is the best one to fit around your lifestyle, but if it allows you should create a closer gap, like 20:4, benefits would be better.

@JasonR IF is for everybody, because thats how the species are made to live. You are not made to eat multiple times per day, every day. There were periods of famine before, and long ones. This is why your body stores fat, so that you can survive off of it in periods of no food.But because those periods never come now, our bodies have a hard time adjusting to eating like this when you first try it. Jason Fung has a great interview ( about 1 hour long on YT that will answer the majority of your questions on the subject ) that you can watch to inform yourself.

How to adjust? All it takes is some willpower. People often say that willpower doesn't work for weight loss and such and it is true, because it is hard to stay motivated and inspired on long term goals, but it is not that way with IF. Your body will be very quick to adjust, it only takes a few days ( when I first started it took me 2-3 days ). Push back through those first couple of days and you are set. It is a hell of a lot easier to do it than people think, but you've conditioned your body to an entire different eating regime for your entire life, you can't expect that to change overnight.

You have shrunken your stomach from eating smaller meals multiple times per day, hence why you are experiencing these difficulties, but your body will adjust.
In my experience, it almost didn't matter what kinds of food I ate, I always experienced hunger in the beginning. Start drinking water and green tea. Coffee makes it worse, it doesn't help. But green tea does help tremendously, if you have a big cup of tea it reduces the hunger by a huge amount.

What are you trying to do is wrong, you can't just go from 6 meals a day to two, because of your stomach size, its hard to digest so much calories at once if your body isn't trained. To be able to eat your calories within one or two meals will be very hard in the beginning, but you can still eat multiple meals and do intermittent fasting. You can split your calories within 4 meals and eat them throughout 8 hours during the day, for example, then when you don't find it hard to do, you can start with 3 meals and on and on, but for me, two meals is the best one for me to fit around my lifestyle. If you work a regular job, you can eat lunch with your colleagues and have dinner with your family after that.

I don't know if you run/train regularly, but you shouldn't do it like this in the beginning. IF stresses out your body, although it is a good type of stress, you shouldn't overstress it in the beginning. Being able to train on empty stomach needs adjustments too, what you read on the internet is true - you have explosive amounts of energy when you train on empty stomach, less recovery time and you don't get burned out as much, but you can't just start doing it today and get the full experience, it takes some time.

It might be better for you to place your workouts within your eating window at first. Focus on adjusting your body to fasting primarily at first, then on the training fasted. If weight loss is a concern, wait a few hours after your workout, before you eat. After your body adjusts, working out will reduce hunger instead of promoting it.You can enter the gym hungry and leave it satisfied without eating anything.
On the caloric side, a study was conducted years ago, where they compared groups of people that fasted on , lets say 1000 calories a day, and the other group ate 1000 calories, but didn't practice IF.

The both groups lost almost equal amounts of weight, so its literally how much you at and how much you burn, but on another study when they didn't restrict their calories, the group that practiced IF consumed fewer calories than the group that ate throughout the day. It is a very convenient way to control your calorie intake.After your body adjusts, you can consume 2k today and 1k tomorrow and not feel like its a big deal, but for somebody that doesn't fast, reducing their calories by 1000 is a huge deal. You also don't snack throughout the day, because you don't feel hunger outside of your eating window. Your body is quick to adjust to anything you throw at it. If you start eating at 12PM, it will very soon start to expect a meal at that time, and you will start getting hungry around that time everyday.

And the same logic follows, when you stop eating at certain hours, it doesn't expect food so you don't feel hunger during that time. Now, when I eat breakfast, soon after that I feel hunger again, because your body needs about 2-3 hours to fully digest the food, then it expects more ( because you didn't overeat ), so I will feel hungry before time for lunch comes.But when I skip breakfast, I don't feel hungry until 12 or 1 o'clock ( it depends on how your body is adjusted, but that is how it is for me.This is why people that eat 6 meals a day feel the hunger most of the time. People that have overeating habits think there is something wrong with them, but that is how our bodies are supposed to function. We weren't meant to eat few times per day ( not everyday anyway ) and snack every hour.

The cavemen hunted, killed and ate an animal at once, almost, because they couldn't store it like we can now ( no refrigerators ), but that didn't happen everyday. The few tribes that are left now understand this and force themselves to fast even when food is present. That is how we were supposed to function, so I don't believe anybody that says "This isn't for me", yes it is, just give it some time and see for yourself. It is incredible how our bodies function in periods of lack of food. The strength, the mental clarity, the focus, the 'excess' energy, the increased HGH, the effort to protect the muscles from disappearing .. all of this comes with a purpose. That you are able to hunt or gather ( climb trees ) your food.Hunger makes you stronger, not weaker.

If you fatigued when you didn't eat, you would just lie in the cave powerless until you died. It runs off of fat first, dead skin, and muscle last. This is why you can heal scars with prolonged fasts, because the body consumes what is not needed. I'm pretty sure you can remove excess skin ( from losing lots of weight ) doing the same thing. Hunger also doesn't affect your brain and your reproducing organs, that's nature's way of making sure your species survive, no matter what. It is just incredible.

Summary; give it some time, start with smaller steps.Eat smaller meals throughout your eating window and don't force yourself to eat two big meals in the beginning. Drink lots of water and when you're feeling hungry - green tea helps. If you are new to IF do not train on empty stomach. If weight loss is a concern, do not eat right after your workout, but wait an hour or two.

Hope the spacing makes it easier to read.

 

[fortu1992]

I have already read the Italian version of the book that came out last year. Valter Longo is originally from a small village near my place where there are many centenarians

 

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[Etido]

Man, it's great a lot of you love IF, but I've tried it and I can't seem to solve a few issues:

Morning Hunger: I'm terribly hungry in the morning, even after coffee. I typically do fasted cardio, and then eat right after. On IF, I may do fasted cardio and eat 2-3 hours after and I'm famished, which makes me cranky.

When I eat my required macros/calories in 2 meals, I feel incredibly bloated and full. I really dislike this feeling, and it seems like it's unnecessarily hard on my stomach.

To me, IF is just a way to reduce your calories. I'm not sure if the fasting part has as much to do with fat loss than actual caloric reduction.

I'm love for someone to prove me wrong or offer suggestions to my two issues, as it is much more convenient to eat 2 times per day as opposed to 5-6.

Hey @JasonR , a couple ideas:

Morning Hunger: Try drinking some calorie-free BCAA powder in the morning (I use Xtend). I'm not sure if its the BCAAs, the flavor tricking your brain/stomach or just the extra fluids but it always helps tide cravings for me.

Feeling bloated: Try eating 3 meals or 2 meals + snack instead. I personally like being able to eat larger portions on a fasting diet but its not for everyone.

 

[Alexo]

Man, it's great a lot of you love IF, but I've tried it and I can't seem to solve a few issues:

Morning Hunger: I'm terribly hungry in the morning, even after coffee. I typically do fasted cardio, and then eat right after. On IF, I may do fasted cardio and eat 2-3 hours after and I'm famished, which makes me cranky.

When I eat my required macros/calories in 2 meals, I feel incredibly bloated and full. I really dislike this feeling, and it seems like it's unnecessarily hard on my stomach.

To me, IF is just a way to reduce your calories. I'm not sure if the fasting part has as much to do with fat loss than actual caloric reduction.

I'm love for someone to prove me wrong or offer suggestions to my two issues, as it is much more convenient to eat 2 times per day as opposed to 5-6.

IF is great but many people focus too much on fasting instead of their diet! Eat the right foods and your health will improve. Eat garbage and fasting will never help you.

Your morning hunger is due to low blood sugar level and your blood sugar level is likely out of wack because you are probably eating way too many carbs. Do you eat bread? rice? potatoes? cookies? oats? I can almost guarantee that your bloating is due to too much carbs in the diet.

People also focus way too much on calorie count. With eating low carb/mosly meat, this calorie count is unnecessary - you eat when you are hungry. With low carb/mostly meat, your blood sugar is not being spiked every time you eat (at least not as much as when you have carbs), your cravings and binging disappear and overall health improves.